Shards
by Bluethought
Summary: When you have nothing left, not even sleep, all you can do is drag yourself over shards of broken memories. [HPSS musings.]
1. Shards

Yeah, I don't own Harry Potter. You know the drill.

Also, this is loosley based on a chapter of Lies by Molly Morrison. In fact, if it were any looser, it would probably fall off. If you're reading this, Molly, I hope you don't mind.

* * *

_I'm not at my best when left to my own devices._

_My own devices aren't in the best of shape._

_My own devices don't _work

_-_Barnaby Legg and Jim McCarthy.

* * *

No no no please. No. I'll do anything, I'll say what you want me to say. I'll think what you want me to think, please, leave me be. No more potions to calm me, no more soothing draughts, please, you're paralysing me, crippling me. Please, sweet Jesus, no. 

I know it's for my own good but I can't take it anymore, and I'm begging, please God no don't make me drink it, I know you're my friend and I know you're helping but I can't drink it oh sweet Jesus don't touch me please NO PLEASE GOD DON'T MAKE ME DRINK IT NO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE  
you have me so drugged up I can't... I can't... think...

_You force into me these concoctions of magic. You say they are to stop me getting overexcited. How can I get _excited_? The only reason you 'rescued' me is because I nearly killed the Dursleys, wrapped up in grief and their taunting words. You dragged me here, forced me here. And now you don't know what to do with me, and so you freeze me with lethargy potions until you have decided what to do. And every day, just so the doses overlap and I can only beg with you, plead with you to not give me more, you force fresh poison into me. You are breaking - or have broken me; I cannot remember another time, not even at the Dursleys, where I begged somebody to stop, where I would have fully given up my right to think and my beliefs just so I could be left as myself. You force liquids into me that drain my energy and leave me too tired to sleep so I have to while away the hours thinking at a crawling pace, where I can re-live memories I never wanted to see again._

_While you all sit downstairs in this mansion of black memories I live my life again up here. Because you want to put me on hold until you know what to do with me, where to put me, I can't evolve from my past. I can't move on from my anger. I can only stew in it, like I would a dark, snarling swamp. I sit in fetid darkness, in stagnant memories and old reminisces. I need time, I know this, to move on. I _need_ to move on, but for the sake of efficiency you keep me locked in my own body... my own mind._

_Sometimes you coerce me to take it with Remus; as a friend, as a brother, he says, but I see that he honestly thinks it helps me and I pity him. But I still beg. I cannot take much more of this... this living nightmare. I cannot._

_Sometimes, Hermione comes up with it, but I beg for her as well and she flees, and then someone else comes and does it instead._

_Ron never comes. I can't_ think _why._

_Sometimes, even Snape, when you think brute force is needed. I look at him and I remember past emotions. I remember the hatred and the desperation that has replaced it. I remember the loathing and the disparity that has usurped_ that. _All I feel now is a desperate urge to not have any more chemicals in my body. The lethargy that drains me has eaten away my resolve and my inhibitions and my pride, and all I can think is no not more. And so I beg for him as well._

_Oh, what_ must _he think of me?_

_I do believe that he enjoys it, but I'm not sure. I can't read people any more. I'm too concerned with what they're trying to force-feed me, and how much I don't want to take it. I dredge this interpretation of him from old memories. That's all I've got left now. I can't know people any more, I can't understand them. I take everything at face value.All I can do is lie in solitary pain and pray for some kind of release._

_Because I think I can hear Death knocking at the door. And his grin is not fearsome, nor the vacuum black of his eyes; he comes shrouded in peace of black robe, of calmness (not potion-induced tranquillity but genuine release), and of rest. And when he swings his scythe (be it sooner or later) I will be thankful._

_But for now I live in Hell._

_Wait... it has been twenty three and three-quarter hours... and I can feel the last dose wearing off slightly. I have more control over my limbs; the resolution of my vision has cleared slightly... but only because I can lift my eyelids more. Once again, I catch the tail-end of hope that this is all over._

_The door opens... this time it's Snape. _

_Well. Time for my daily performance. The last to receive it was Remus. Who knows. Maybe I can improve._

Please, no. Not again.

You know I can't take any more it's killing me. It's true.

God please don't do this, no more, no more, I can't think, I can't sleep, I can't rest...

No no no, you don't know, you don't understand, it doesn't let me sleep.

Please, I'll be good, I'll do anything, I'll give up, I'll carry on, I'll kill anyone you like if you don't give me any more. I promise I promise. Please. No, please, listen to me! Don't touch me NO! I'LL DO ANYTHING! ANYTHING YOU WANT ME TO DO! I'LL BETRAY ANYONE YOU WANT, I'LL HAND MYSELF OVER, I'LL CONFESS TO ANYTHING YOU WANT ME TO, I'LL DO WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO ANYTHING ANYTHING GOD MERLIN NO

_Like I said, I have no pride left. Still, the judges are holding up at least a couple of grudging eights for this one._

_As per usual, my feeder has to hold me down as I try to struggle weakly away from the glass vial. Once more I am too lethargic to fight properly but I have to try. Show them that this is not what I want._

_My eyes are fuzzy because the glasses are gone; my focus has disappeared, turning sharp shadows into blurry monsters. But this close I can see his face, and obsidian eyes are about as readable as ancient Egyptian to me. He shows no emotion and somewhere, in this antebrain, I think I know that he is trying to conceal emotion from me. Anger? Madness? Sadness? Whatever it is, I don't care. All I care about is the potion sliding down my throat and hitting my stomach in a sickly-sweet bloom of artificial calm._

_It's strange because when I'm conscious and they're trying to make me take it, I mean it. I'd confess to every one of Voldemort's crimes. I'd claim to be the Antichrist, I'd claim to have shot JFK. I'd claim to own completely the colour yellow. I'd make up stories about Ron and turn him in, if that's what they wanted. I'd do anything, just to not have another batch of potion poured down my throat._

_Anything._

Please... no... kill me... please... anything. Please.

_Ah... he's stopped at the doorway. My last few moments of coherence seemed to have startled him. It's funny, because only way back in my brain can I be sarcastic and cynical. The rest of me is still begging._

Anything. Death. Anything.

_That's it. I'm out of energy._

_Can you see how broken they have me? I'm reduced to a handful of pleading whimpers. Once I took the potion without complaint but it's all too much now. I can't even have sleep. I don't know how long I've been like this but it feels like eternity. Too long._

_He's still stood at the doorway. Through half-closed lids I can watch him in my silenced misery. _

_It's impossible to tell what he's thinking, even with my people skills as lost as they are, but I believe I detect surprise for a moment. Perhaps he doesn't_ _really think that the Boy-Who-is-Still-Regrettably-Living could beg for death, beg his most hated acquaintance to kill him, take his life in warm blood._

_Perhaps._

_Or perhaps not._

_The door opens, closes, and I'm left to my own devices._

_I'm not at my best when I'm left to my own devices._

_My own devices aren't in the best of shape._

_My own devices don't_ work.

_So I carry on dragging my consciousness through the shards of broken glass, through fragments of blistered memories and scalded pictures. Through a brain chocked and clogged with memories. Through immobile and unmoving limbs, through a heart that circulates poison paralysis potion but won't kill me. Through eyes that can't shut and won't open. Through fingertips that quiver with effort and exhaustion. Through lungs that breath hot, dry air. Through a cool, fevered brow._

_And the shards of light memories and happy times dance just of out reach, but I watch them twinkle._

No. Please.

_No-one's here to hear it, but there was no voice anyway._

_They won't let me die, and I hate them for it._

_Shards of dark. Shards of life._

_Shards of silver._

_Shards._


	2. Mirroredge

Yeah, this isn't new. I don't own Harry Potter, and loadsa credit to Molly Morrison for letting me 'borrow' her fic.

* * *

_It's like a needle in my spine_

_It stings inside_

_Poisons me with time_

-ADEMA: drowning

* * *

My footsteps echo solidly on each stair as I ascend to the third level of the house. My thoughts are preoccupied, but not distanced enough to let slip the cool, curved glass vial held loosely in my fingers. 

This is a mansion of Black memories; every wall, every surface echoes with absorbed reminiscences, of sights and sounds of the family itself. I feel my skin crawl as I ascend each level. I do not like this place; it ripples with futility of thought and stagnation of style. For me, it also calls memories of hatred and pain, of sufferance and waiting. I am not a patient man at the best of times; waiting does not serve my purpose. I do not like wasting time... even when waiting is necessary.

The task I am undertaking I fought against having to complete; this is one of my lowest, dirtiest chores. Even looking at the boy causes a spasm of revulsion to pass up my spine, a conditioned response from years ago. I never once thought the tables would be turned: he would die, and I would live; he would suffer and I would be strong. But here I am, and I have the upper hand this time. Now I am older and stronger than he, not the other way around... and this time I can exact revenge with no fear of retribution. The boy in question is wasting away as I watch. Every time I tread these stairs he appears frailer and weaker. It is a cause of some concern to some in the house, namely his friends and that Godforsaken werewolf, who fares little better than the boy. I do not and will not care. The boy is of no concern to me, even if he is for others. Every time I see this hated boy the anger is like a needle in my spine... it stings inside, poisons me with time. The child reeks with bad memories, of emotions best long forgotten. His face shows me nothing but hatred and this suits me fine, because that is all I am used to from the likes of him.

My long, thin fingers rest lightly upon the darkened wood of the door. I always hesitate slightly; I will not happily enter this room of anger, and so going through its wooden portal is always an act of sheer willpower.

My treacherous hand turns to door handle, and I step inside the shadowy room.

The curtains are drawn. The air is still. In some abstract way it reminds me of a mausoleum - all death and sickness. And on the bed in the corner the boy himself lies.

His skin now has a yellowish tint, and I note with some amusement that he really does not have much time left. As a teenager, he is built more upon the long and lanky lines than muscular in any way. The effect would make him look malnourished even if he wasn't the equivalent of hospitalised.

I start to move toward the bed, but the message from my brain to my legs rebounds suddenly, and I am caught in the backwash of adrenaline. I stop still - thankfully, it does not look like I am scared, or even that I began moving.

His eyes are open - not fully, perhaps only a quarter of the way. But I see that they have darted to me, as soon as the door had opened.

They are dull with fatigue but I can see that vivacious bright spark of horrible, horrible intelligence shining in the buried green. He is conscious and he is responsive. He is fully aware that it's me, and out of sheer habit I burrow into his mind a little.

I search for the familiar hatred and loathing that is his trademark, but to my surprise I find none at all. Merely shadows of what he supposes he has to feel.

In the hollow left by the bitterness I find an expanse of desperation and disparity that has covered his mind like a stifling blanket.

I feel resignation; he knows fully what's coming, and that there is nothing he can do to fight it. A flicker of a smile crosses his face; I don't think he even felt that happening - it was entirely subconscious. There is a prolonged breath, as he prepares for the fight to come. I approach the bedside without any emotion showing on my face.

_Shut up, Potter._

_It can't kill you, Potter. It would have done so already._

_Of course you can rest. That's what it's f-_

_Don't interrupt. You don't need to sleep with this potion - or has your intelligence melted so that you can't remember it from my classes?_

Somehow, I get the feeling he isn't listening to me properly. He has held my gaze for a long time, enough for me to see that he means every word he says, and he will not stop babbling this truth from a mere order from me. But now his gaze encompasses the bottle of potion I hold. I begin to move toward him, uncorking the bottle as I go.

_Shut up, Potter._

_I said, SHUT UP!_

But he's not listening to me. He'd be screaming now if he had the energy, but the most he can manage is an anguished croak. It's a simple matter of me placing my hand on the base of his throat, feeling the protruding collarbones and rippling tendons beneath my sensitive palm, and pressing slightly. It depresses his breathing just enough to stop him fighting so much (if you can call what he was doing fighting) and for me to tip most of the potion down his throat.

I prod a little into his mind as I do this. The clouds of fatigue and exhaustion surprise me slightly; the point of the calming draught is to make the body rest and recuperate. To hold it still. To stop any progression. To halt the encroaching mental processes. Isn't it?

I haven't felt doubt in a long time, and I do not savour its sallow tang.

I have gotten enough down his throat to drain his energy and I tip the rest down without any trouble. But his eyes, oh, his eyes are laughing and he probably isn't even aware of it. His pupils glitter with tiredness and black humour: he knew it was coming and he did his best and it didn't help and somehow, way back in his brain, he found this hilariously funny. But it subsides (although does not disappear) now my job is done.

I content myself with knowing I've done what I came for and that I need to spend no more time in this Godforsaken room. I turn to leave, and I am in the doorway when -

_What?_

The boy wouldn't have heard me say that, which is probably just as well. But I stand there in the doorway, my eyes staring fiercely at a rip in the plaster of the wall, confused beyond belief, though I find it hard to admit it to myself.

Why was - why - the boy - asking for death?

There. Again. He said it again. But the breathiness in his voice tells me that he will not speak again in a while; he simply has not the energy.

He is asking me for death. I tell myself that it is because I am the person who happened to be nearest when he said this, but that paranoia that everybody has is sneering at me. 'He's asking you,' it says, 'because he knows you're the most likely to do it for him. Except it would not be revenge; it would be a mercy killing.

Admit it; it's something you know well. Everyone needs time to get over sorrow.

With this potion you are holding this boy captive in his own head, stewing in his own remorse. It's an equivalent of Azkaban.'

I step through the door, and leave the boy to his own devices.

I am outside that room now, but I feel like the door is invisible. Somehow I think he can see me and that he knows; but I know this is just paranoia. The boy is in too much turmoil to even listen for my footsteps. His senses are too tangled at the moment; too fevered.

I lean against the door for the solidity it offers. As much as I hate, no, loathe the boy, I cannot bring myself to think of making another batch of the potion. I won't be able to.

I think I hear a breath of words, just faint enough for me to think that it is

my imagination at work again.

I go downstairs.

llllllllll

I find myself in the boy's room barely six hours later, and I don't know why.

Perhaps it is some morbid fascination, watching a living corpse. The clock downstairs is close to striking the first hour of the new day, and the boy is utterly motionless. I watch him, and I think. I think. Think.

The wizarding world was supposed to make your dreams come true.

Remember some of your dreams?

I have drawn the curtains back; somehow, the absence of total darkness clears the air a little - removes some of the oppression.

Suddenly, I am shocked from my thoughts by a raspy voice: I cannot help but think _death rattle._

He has called me by my title, and wondered in a single word why I am here. There is only one response I can give that can answer truthfully.

_Nothing, Potter. Nothing at all._

I turn and sweep from the room, but not once does my brain stop in its cogitative process.

I won't let him die, and he hates me for it.

There is light in the room, slices of luminescence cast by the travelling moon, blades as sharp as a mirror edge. And what is a mirror-image but a parody of the real thing? Colours deeper, edges sharper, more real, but not even as substantial as a shadow. Mirrors show both what's there and what isn't, and this light proves to me that there is a boy there and a man, all at the same time: someone who had to grow up too quickly. And I hate him, I really do. I hate him.

I hate him hate him hate him so why is it that I sympathise?

But this mirror of life, this caricature of living won't let him live properly.

Won't let me live properly.

Mirrors of dark. Mirrors of life.

Mirrors of silver.

_Mirrors._


End file.
